Electoral Democracy and the Attenuation of Subaltern

Electoral Democracy and the Attenuation of Subaltern Resistance in Ghana Why Democracy is increasingly becoming a Poisoned Chalice in Africa Jasper Abembia Ayelazuno1

Abstract: The paper highlights one of the central arguments of my book, Neoliberal Globalisation and Resistance from Below: Why the Subalterns Resist in Bolivia and not in Ghana. Electoral democracy is one of the distinctive properties of the present socio-historical context of Ghana, a factor that has strongly shaped the political agency of the subaltern classes. Since holding its “founding” elections in 1992, Ghana’s (re)democratisation has become a model of electoral democracy in Africa. Yet the democratic experience of the subaltern classes is that of misery and a neo-patrimonial democratic state, buried neck-deep in corruption, unable to deliver basic necessities of life to the poor. Paradoxically, the Ghanaian subaltern classes have not mobilised in an Arab Spring-style to resist the failed democratic developmental state. They are rather divided by and loyal to their political tribes, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic (NDC) party. They sometimes even engage in internecine intra-subaltern struggles over the patronage dispensed by the neo-patrimonial political oligarchy. Thus, one of the paradoxes of electoral democracy in Ghana is that, rather than opening political space for subaltern groups to mobilise from “below” to hold the state accountable, it has led to, on one hand, the attenuation of subaltern resistance; and on the other, the emergence of a politically gullible and pliant subaltern class that is deeply divided along party-tribal lines.

1 University for Development Studies, Ghana.

Institute of African Studies Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada) 2019 (7)

48 Nokoko 7 2019

In his influential book, Africa Since Independence, Paul Nugent as-

ked whether independence was a “poisoned chalice or a cup of plen-

ty?” (Nugent, 2004, p. 7). Another watershed event in the political

history of Sub-Saharan Africa (henceforth, Africa) that happened in

the postcolonial era was the wave of democratisation which swept

the region in the early 1990s. Indeed, some observers even described

the latter as the ‘second independence’ or ‘second liberation’ of Afri-

ca (Legum, 1990; Muna, 1991; Ake, 1993). After two decades expe-

rience with electoral democracy, the time is ripe to pose Nugent’s

question again: is democracy a poisoned chalice or cup of plenty?

From a radical perspective of political accountability, my contribu-

tion addresses this question by scrutinising Ghana’s 25 years of de-

mocratic governance, “held up as one of Africa’s star democratizers”

(Gyimah-Boadi, 2015, p.101). Since holding its “founding” election

in 1992, Ghana has since organised six successive, four-yearly perio-

dic, and peaceful elections. The most recent, 2016 elections, lent

credibility to the narrative of Ghana being a star democratizer, with

the organizational capacity and requisite political culture of holding

relatively peaceful, free and fair elections. They were the third elec-

tions whose results have led to the rotation of power between the

incumbent party and its political opponent, the opposition party.

The Ghanaian subaltern classes often turn out in massive numbers

to vote, and in some cases, wait several hours in the queue to do so.

There is a sense in which one may argue that the subalterns have

embraced electoral democracy, if even their wellbeing has not im-

proved in any significant ways (Ayelazuno, 2015).

Ghana’s (re)democratisation has been a magnet for the work of

scholars, democracy-promotion civil society groups, and develop-

ment aid agencies. With electoral democracy promoted as the “only

game in town”, a voluminous body of literature, both scholarly and

grey, has been produced. A great deal of this work has fixated on

promoting and analysing Ghana’s progress on the minimum condi-

tions for the consolidation of electoral democracy, the predominant

Electoral Democracy / Jasper Abembia Ayelazuno 49

model of democracy shaped by the neoliberal world order. In con-

trast to this oeuvre, this paper interrogates Ghana’s 25 years-old elec-

toral democracy from a more radical perspective of democracy and

political accountability and legitimacy. I argue that Ghana’s electoral

democracy has led to the installation an elected neo-patrimonial

oligarchy that uses the political legitimacy bestowed on it by elec-

tions to command the resources of the state. It then distributes them

to themselves, their cronies, and clients.

What electoral democracy has done in Ghana and elsewhere in

Africa is to give political legitimacy to the hitherto authoritarian neo-

patrimonial state. The corollary of all this is the emergence and con-

solidation of the elitist, Schumpeterian model of electoral democra-

cy where elections are not mechanisms for holding the political

elites accountable. They are rather institutional arrangements

through which the political elites are vested with “the power to de-

cide on all matters as a consequence of their successful pursuit of

people’s votes” (Held, 2006, p. 142). Far from being rule by the de-

mos, electoral democracy in Ghana is increasingly becoming a poi-

soned chalice because of the attenuation of resistance from “below”

against the elected oligarchy. Unchecked from “below” by the subal-

tern classes—safe the four-yearly ritual of elections—the elected oli-

garchy of Ghana acts like the ancien regime of France prior to the

1789 Revolution in eighteenth century. They overindulge themselves

openly in opulent lifestyles which—in a country where every corner

is marked by one subaltern or the other eking out a miserable life—

represents islands of wealth in an ocean of poverty. The prediction

of Ghanaian Political Scientist, F.K. Drah, on the eve of the

(re)democratisation of Ghana has become true: he anticipated that

the participation of the masses in the democracy they struggled for

would be manipulated by the political class for their selfish ends if

the masses did not keep control of the political class (Drah, 1987, p.

31).

50 Nokoko 7 2019

This perverted democracy is shaping the wind of disillusion-

ment with democracy blowing across Africa and the world in general

because of its failure to deliver substantive material equality. Liberal

democracy all over the world is being called to question because of

its inherent contradictions, major among them is the gap between

the enjoyment of procedural equality and immiseration from struc-

tural socioeconomic inequality; a condition engendered by neolibe-

ral globalisation. This situation is giving rise to creeping political

tribalism even in the heartlands of democracy like USA and UK,

where the disappointments with democratic governance is creating

an increasingly intolerant and tribalistic democratic citizenry, fuelled

by extreme right-wing populism (Inglehart and Norris, 2016; Zaka-

ria, 2016; Chua, 2018; Fukuyama, 2018). The (re)democratisation of

Africa happened in the specific socio-political context of polities

characterised by widespread practices of neopatrimonialism (Bratton

and van de Walle, 1997; Allen, 1995; Sandbrook, 2000). Not to be

outdone, these neopatrimonialism practices have, unsurprisingly,

come back with vengeance—if they ever went anywhere at all—to

debase democracy to the ritual of rotating one elected neo-

patrimonial oligarchy with another by means of so-called free and

fair elections.

In this political context, periodic elections will not suffice to

make democracy truly participatory and social-democratic (Drah,

1987, p. 30–1; Ake, 1996, p. 132, 137). Even in the celebrated de-

mocracy of Ghana, elections have merely led to the rotation of one

elected neopatrimonial oligarchy to another. Radical modes of hol-

ding the elected neopatrimonial oligarchy accountable to the subal-

terns for their decisions, actions, and inactions are required. I am,

here, canvassing for resistance from the “bottom” by the subaltern

classes; I am urging the participation of the Ghanaian subalterns in

‘contentious politics’ (Tarrow, 1998) or ‘collective action’ (Piven,

2006). In addition to queuing long hours to vote every four years,

the subalterns need to mobilise as a class—not supporters of diffe-


rent political parties—to mount “contentious challenges through

disruptive direct action” (Tarrow, 1998, p. 5) against the political

elites for their harsh neoliberal policies, their obscene display of pro-

fligate lifestyles, and the massive corruption they are engaged in. The

active participation of the subaltern classes in contentious politics is

critical to rescuing democracy from the capture of neo-

patrimonialism. However, these non-traditional modes of political

participation have been marginalised in the era of the hegemony of

liberal democracy where periodic elections are viewed as the only

mechanism by which the citizenry can hold the state accountable in

a democratic system of government. The refrain is that citizens

should go out and vote; it is better to use the ballot, as “paper

stones”, than to use barricades and bullets (Przeworski and Sprague,

1986).

Yet the erosion of contentious politics is rather ironic as the

universal suffrage, by which electoral democracy is practised, was

made possible through contentious politics. The (re)democratisation

of Africa happened on the back of contentious politics. Courageous

ordinary people defied the brutality of authoritarian regimes and

organised protests against their tyrannical rule. Contentious politics

opened the political space for variegated transitional trajectories to

electoral democracy in Africa and other parts of the world such as

Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia. It was, more recently, tried

in North Africa and the Middle East, though with few successes

Paradoxically, the prospects of radical modes of holding the

state accountable from “below” are not bright in Ghana—despite the

hospitable political context liberal democracy has provided through

constitutional guarantees of freedoms of association and expression,

as well as the rule of law and due process. There a sense in which

liberal democracy, with all its contradictions and democratic deficits,

opens the political space or provides what social movement theorists

conceptualised as the ‘political opportunity’ (Tarrow, 1998; Meyer,

2004) for the subalterns to mobilise from “below” against elected

52 Nokoko 7 2019

neo-patrimonial oligarchy for their corrupt practices and harsh neo-

liberal policies. Paradoxically, the Ghanaian subalterns have not

mobilised in an Arab Spring-style to resist the failed democratic

developmental state. Why? This is the question I posed and addres-

sed in detail in my recent book published with Routledge, Neolibe-

ral Globalization and Resistance from Below: Why the Subalterns

Resist in Bolivia and not in Ghana (Ayelazuno, 2019). While the

Ghanaian subalterns have historically been “virile and irrepressible

by nature” (Padmore, 1953), electoral democracy has led to the di-

minution of resistance on one hand; and on the other, the emer-

gence of a politically gullible and sycophantic subaltern class that is

deeply divided along, and loyal to, the two major political tribes in

Ghana: The National Democratic Congress (NDC) party and New

Patriotic Party (NPP). Because of their party-tribalism, the subalterns

do not mobilise as a unified class to resist the elected neo-

patrimonial political elites. They rather engage in internecine

struggles over the patronage dispensed by their political patrons.

Clearly, elections and the elected neopatrimonial political elites in

Ghana have not only divided the ranks of the subaltern classes, the

latter have continued to exploit this division to their political advan-

tage (Ayelazuno, 2019, p. 193, 216-217).

Democratising the Ghanaian Neo-patrimonial State

Electoral liberal democracy presumes a form of state that has

well-developed institutions; functional and effective in meeting the

minimal procedural standards of democracy. Institutions are the

building blocks of democracy (Luckham, et al., 2003). They deter-

mine whether democratic standards and procedures are followed or

not, whether democratic goods (even in their nominal and procedu-

ral form) are delivered to the citizens or not, and for that matter,

whether or not citizens enjoy the democratic goods they are entitled;


and whether the roles that democracy plays for the general good of

society are played effectively or not.

Functional and efficient institutions are key to whether elec-

tions can be a conflict resolution tool; whether elections can be a

procedure of political accountability; whether a democratic citizen of

Ghana gets treated equally before the law; whether he/she gets

treated fairly by, say, the judge, police officer, prison officer, and the

bureaucrat; and whether horizontal accountability of government to

citizens through checks and balances works or not (see O’Donnell,

1996). As advocates of liberal democracy assert, when functional

institutions do not exist or are in short supply, the most critical pil-

lar of liberal democracy crumbles, leaving it on shaky grounds (Fu-

kuyama, 2015). Not that strong institutions can do anything to ad-

dress the inherent contradictions of liberal democracy: to address,

for example, the contradiction between procedural political equality

of citizens on one hand and substantive economic inequalities on

the other. They cannot, but good institutions are the prerequisite for

any modicum of credibility in the defence of liberal democracy by

its advocates.

In the 1990s, neo-patrimonial practices of autocratic African

leaders led to crises in political legitimacy, culminating in the agita-

tions of the masses for democracy, and subsequently the transition

from authoritarian to variegated democratic regimes (Bratton and

van de Walle 1997, p. 98-99). As will be revealed below, these neo-

patrimonial practices have intensified after the transition to demo-

cracy in Ghana. Indeed, they are practised brazenly and with audaci-

ty because of the tendency of electoral democracy to degenerate to

“delegative democracy” where elections lead to the installation of “a

caesaristic, plebiscitarian executive that once elected sees itself as

empowered to govern the country as it deems fit” (O’Donnell, 2010,

p. 33). In a neo-patrimonial form of state like Ghana, elections do

not produce representative and accountable governments. They ra-

ther produced an elected oligarchy, whose members, depending on

54 Nokoko 7 2019

their position in the government, behave like lords, nobles, princes,

and princesses. This poses a poignant question whether democrati-

sing a neo-patrimonial state changes its perverted characteristics to

anything close to a semblance of an effective state with the capacity

and political commitment to serve the good of all citizens irrespec-

tive of their political connections and socio-economic class.

The answer to this question must be no. What has happened in

Ghana is the replacement of the authoritarian neo-patrimonial state

with a democratic patrimonial state, a worse form of this perverted

form of state. Perverted because it deviates from the ideal state,

which is supposed to be founded on strong institutions, and suppo-

sed to operate strictly according to formal rules guiding the discharge

of the duties and behaviour of state officials. Why these officials

need to be guided by formal rules is because their actions and inac-

tions make the state functional or dysfunctional; make it effective or

ineffective; make it deliver services efficiently or inefficiently to citi-

zens. It is the actions and inactions of these officials that make the

state accountable to the citizens or to the special interests of a few

elite groups of people. Their behaviour can make the state propitious

of a form of development that serves the general good of all the citi-

zens or make it a non-developmental state that fails to provide con-

ditions for citizens to meet their basic needs. Worse than that, their

actions and inactions can waste the resources of the people on use-

less things, but which are otherwise useful to the political class be-

cause they serve their personal and political interests, as well as

those of their relatives, cronies, and clients.

The Ghanaian state under electoral democracy is afflicted by

many incurable maladies of the neopatrimonial state. In most cases,

state officials operate more on informal rules than the formal ones

they pledged to be guided by. For example, the elected oligarchy and

top public servants are mostly corrupt, adept in manipulating and

subverting the formal rules they are supposed to operate by, to en-

rich themselves and to live lavishly. Writing in the 1970s, Nigerian


political scientist, Peter Eke, correctly described the character and

behaviour of the Ghanaian political and bureaucratic elites of today:

their behaviour reflect the “amorality of an artful dodger” (Ekeh,

1975, p. 107), who sees the state and politics as not the realm for

morally-upright behaviour of serving the citizens diligently and ho-

nestly. They rather see the state as a pot of gold, and politics as the

pathway to grabbing it to serve their personal interests. This charac-

terization generally remains true in 2018.

Though celebrated as a model of electoral democracy, the Gha-

naian democratic state meets most of the characteristics of the neo-

patrimonial state, captured in the oft-cited conceptualisation of this

perverted form of state;

As with classic patrimonialism, the right to rule in neo-

patrimonial regimes is ascribed to a person rather than to an office,

despite the official existence of a written constitution. One indivi-

dual (the strongman, “big man”, or “supremo”), often a president

for life, dominates the state apparatus and stands above its laws. Re-

lationships of loyalty and dependence pervade a formal political and

administrative system, and officials occupy bureaucratic positions

less to perform public service, their ostensible purpose, than to ac-

quire personal wealth and status (Bratton and van de Walle, 1997, p.

62).

The two authors document in detail the dynamics and characte-

ristics of this perverted form of state in Africa. Some of these charac-

teristics that stand out as the defining features of the Ghanaian libe-

ral democratic state are:

1. Officially, state officials receive salary but they also “enjoy access to various forms of illicit rents, prebends, and petty corruption, which constitute a sometimes important entitlement of office” (p. 62);

2. Formal rules exist on paper, but “parallel and unofficial structures may well hold more power and authority than the formal administration” (p. 62);

3. Formal institutions or rules hardly constrain state official from using their offices to serve their narrow selfish interests. On the contrary, the

56 Nokoko 7 2019

personal interests of political leaders and top public servants take precedence over formal institutions and the public good (p. 63)

4. Government, especially the executive arm, is transformed from an institution exercising authority within the bounds of checks and balances to what is conceptualised as “presidentialism”; where the executive head, the president or head of state, exercises wide-ranging power directly himself, rarely delegating to any other persons to act on his/her behalf (p. 63)

5. Some citizens, some more than others, are transformed to “clients”. Rather than the lofty civic virtues highlighted above, they become gullible and sycophantic supporters of the political elites, and expect to receive, and receive favours in exchange for their support and loyalty (p. 65). In Ghana these favours include political appointments such chief executives of local government organs, state organisations, board members and chairpersons of public organisations, special assistants and spokespersons; scholarship to study abroad; award of contracts; material and monetary gifts such as cars and lump sums of money.

6. The corollary of all the above perversions is a state whose officials have no sense of the distinction between public and personal resources. Political elites and top public servants dip their hands into the public purse to dispense favours and enrich themselves and commandeer other resources of the state such as vehicles, land, minerals, oil and fuel to serve their private interests (p. 66).

The postcolonial Ghanaian state exhibits most of these charac-

teristics of the neo-patrimonial state, whether governed by demo-

cratic or authoritarian regimes.

Implications of the Democratisation of the Neo-

patrimonial Ghanaian State

The nature of electoral democracy, in the way that it involves

competing for votes, deepens and extends some of the practices of

neo-patrimonialism outlined above. The stakes of winning or losing

elections are often high, as this determines whether political elites

get control of the state and its resources or not. Being a zero-sum

game in which the winner takes all, and loser loses all, elections

must be won at all cost, regardless of the means used to do this. The

end justifies the means, including the means by which votes are bar-


gained for and bought. These dynamics of elections not only rein-

force the patron-client transactional relations but broaden them

across a broader constituency of clients and across all corners of the

country. Small wonder that some electorates in Ghana see elections

as a ‘harvesting season’ and a time to “chop, a season during which

voters demand favours from politicians and for politicians to distri-

bute patronage to voters for their votes” (Lindberg, 2003, p. 124).

This way of viewing elections turns them to something totally diffe-

rent from an institution for voters to participate in politics as politi-

cal equals and as an organised way of choosing representatives to

govern on behalf of the citizens. Nor can they be mechanisms for

vertical political accountability where the citizens punish or reward

their representatives for exercising their mandate well or badly.

As correctly noted by Lindberg;

The function of such giving and taking is to establish and reproduce pacts of mutual loyalty… In this instance, there is little left of the idea of democratic accountability in a liberal democracy. Elected officials are not held accountable for their action, or inaction, with regard to public matters and their political agendas rely on the provision of socioeconomic benefits in personalized networks (2003, p. 124).

The wide powers given to the president of Ghana by the Fourth

Republic Constitution of Ghana have opened the floodgates for the

neo-patrimonial practices sketched above, making political accoun-

tability of Ghanaian presidents to the citizens a caricature of itself.

One of the unremitting promoters of liberal democracy in Afri-

ca made a notable and accurate observation of the risks posed to

democratic governance by the overly powerful Ghanaian president;

…so far, elections have proven an uncertain mechanism for guaranteeing the political accountability of political leaders [in Africa]…Thus, despite two decades of democratization across the sub-Saharan subcontinent, political executives in Africa continue to enjoy considerable room for decision-making maneuver with all the opportunities for corruption and maladministration that such discretion allows (Bratton and Logan, 2014, p. 1).

58 Nokoko 7 2019

Precisely what has happened in Ghana? A case in point is the

extensive powers of appointment Article 71 of the constitution gives

to the president. He has the power to appoint heads of key public

institutions such as the Commissioner for Human Rights and Admi-

nistrative Justice and his/her Deputies; the Auditor-General; the Dis-

trict Assemblies Common Fund Administrator; the Chairmen and

other members of the Public Services Commission; the Lands

Commission; the governing bodies of public corporations; and

Chairman, Deputy Chairmen, and other members of the Electoral

Commission. In addition to article 71, other articles of the constitu-

tion give the president the power to appoint the Chief Justice and

other Justices of the Superior Courts (article 144); the Chief of De-

fense Staff of the Armed Forces (article 212); and The Inspector-

General of Police (article 202). A president with megalomaniac ten-

dencies may abuse these powers to serve his or her narrow political

interests. Concerned to protect their selfish interests and to create a

personality cult of themselves, Ghanaian presidents have the ten-

dency to use these appointments to reward relatives, friends, and

party loyalist; they use them to punish those who are disloyal or

suspected to belong to the opposition party; and in some cases, to

show those who disagree with or criticise them where power lies.

One of the dangerous developments in Ghanaian democracy is

the increasing politicisation of most public agencies supposed to be

serving citizens rather than the president, including the politicisation

(and doubly dangerous at that) of the military, police and other se-

curity organs. With the awesome powers of the president to appoint

and sack—known in recent political discourses in Ghana as the po-

wer to appoint and disappoint—most public servants who serve at

his pleasure are mostly afraid to serve the public if doing that will

displease the president, his appointees and party top executives such

as the national and regional chairmen/persons. Cowardly, these po-

liticised, rather than neutral public servants run around with their

tails in-between their legs carrying out the orders of the president,


his ministers, appointees, and top/influential executives of his par-

ty—even if they border on his personal interests and the interests of

his political party. Or, they do not perform their functions if doing

so will hurt the personal or political interests of the president, his

appointees, friends and relatives. Even military and police comman-

ders have become eye-pleasers of the president rather than the pro-

fessionals they are supposed to be, and in whose safe hands the se-

curity of the homeland and the protection of national resources

from the loot of the political classes may be left in. The commanders

of these agencies, particularly the police, have become toothless in

the face criminal abuse of political office; unable to deal with acts of

lawlessness or crimes involving the political class, their loyal suppor-

ters, and those who are well-connected politically.

Spawning from the politicisation of the security agencies by the

political elites are two threats to the democratic political stability of

Ghana: political party vigilantism and discontent simmering below

the surface of the existing order in these agencies. Political party vigi-

lantism has emerged in Ghana, with the foot soldiers of the NDC

and NPP constituting themselves to security agencies responsible for

the protection of the interests of their parties, including the use of

violent means (Bob-Milliar, 2014). The very core quality of the

Ghanaian state, the monopoly of the use of force and right to raise

military/paramilitary forces, is challenged by the existence of party

vigilante/paramilitary organs such as Azorka Boys, Bolga Bull Dogs,

Invincible Forces, Bamba Boys and the Kandahar Boys. For fear of

losing their positions, the chiefs of state security organs have failed

to take firm action to dismantle these vigilante groups. Yet there are

career military or police personnel who want to discharge their func-

tions as professionals, not party men or women. Herein lies the se-

cond threat to the democratic stability of Ghana. This professional

segment of the security agencies, concerned to protect the integrity

of their profession, may rise up against the increasing politicisation

of the army or the police. This is no doomsaying, based on un-

60 Nokoko 7 2019

founded fears. If the history of military coups in Ghana and Africa is

any guide, the politicisation of the security agencies of Ghana risk

reversing the country’s enduring democracy and may plunge it back

into the dark era of coups and counter coups of the 1970s.

Corruption is one of the practices of the neo-patrimonial that

has been made worse by electoral democracy. One keen observer

once noted that corruption is so endemic in Ghana it is openly ac-

cepted as part of the economic system of the country (Brittain, 1983,

p. 51). Older Ghanaians would blame the military government of

Colonel Acheampong for painting such an ignoble image of the

country. His government and the 1970s—the period that he ruled—

are known for the widespread practices of corruption, patron-client

transactions, and nepotism. So widespread were these practices that

a local word, kalabule, was coined to capture them and the klepto-

cratic tendencies of Acheampong. It took a revolution by Flight Lieu-

tenant J.J. Rawlings—under the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council

(AFRC)—to cleanse the Ghanaian society of this moral decadence

that had eaten so deep into its fibre. Indeed, the AFRC adopted vio-

lent, highhanded and extrajudicial measures to do so.

With the benefit of hindsight, the revolution failed to change

the inherent neo-patrimonial practices of the Ghanaian state, parti-

cularly, with the redemocratisation of Ghana in 1992. Thus,

Acheampong’s government may mark the worst autocratic neo-

patrimonial state, but the democratic neo-patrimonial state that

emerged in 1993 has surpassed Acheampong’s regime with neo-

patrimonial practices, particularly corruption. This is not surprising

because military governments often do not need elections in order

to continue to stay in power, nor do they need the support and

loyalty of a big and wide range of clients to stay in power. In con-

trast, because of the high transactional cost of elections and elec-

tioneering, the inherent practices of corruption of the neopatrimo-

nial state may worsen. Corrupt practices in Ghana have gotten worse

because the political class and their accomplices in the public service


and private sector have become bigger than existed in authoritarian

regimes of government. Unlike electoral democracies, the authorita-

rian regimes of Ghana did not need parliamentarians and party

executives; as well, they didn’t need so many ministers and political

appointees as it pertains to the democratic regimes that have existed

since 1993.

To be added to these are the huge opportunities for corruption

that opened up in the era of liberal democracy. Money and other

resources flowed in from development aid and commercial loans in

the name of implementing so-called development projects to im-

prove the wellbeing of Ghanaians. The reality, however, is different.

In Ghana, most development projects open up avenues for the poli-

tical and bureaucratic elite to make a lot of “dirty” money. If the pro-

ject involves the award of contract, the procurement of goods, and

the recruitment of staff, it is a juicy opportunity for a syndicate of the

political, bureaucratic, and business elites to get rich and dispense

largesse of state and favours to various constituencies of supporters,

friends, and relatives. It is not surprising that, between 2012 and

2014, Ghana lost more than $3 billion every year through corrup-

tion; an amount that is about 300 percent of the aid it received du-

ring this period (IMANI Ghana, cited in Citifmonline.com, 15 May

2016; see also Graphic.com.gh, 4 July 2018).

Corruption pervades the fibre of the Ghanaian polity in such

crass and reckless abandon, it is described aptly in the words of Jus-

tice Jones Dotse as a situation where the political, bureaucratic, and

business elites conspire “to create, loot and share the resources of

[Ghana] as if a brigade had been set up for such an enterprise”

(Ghanaweb.com, 21 June 2013). Justice Dotse said these words

when he read his opinion on a corruption case involving the pay-

ment of €40million and GH¢51.2 million as judgment debt to Wa-

terville Holdings Ltd and businessman, Alfred Agbesi Woyome—

what has become known in Ghana as the Woyome Gate Scandal.

This scandal is one of the major cases of corruption that occurred

62 Nokoko 7 2019

under the government of one of Ghana’s two major political parties,

the NDC party. However, it is a microcosm of the broader and gar-

gantuan spate of corruption that has characterised the Fourth Repu-

blic of Ghana under the government of the two major parties, the

NDC and NPP: the two parties that have rotated power between

themselves through the four-yearly periodic elections held in Ghana

since 1992. The pulse.com.gh, one of Ghana’s online news media

portals, did a good job of publishing on its website ‘15 memorable

quotes on corruption by famous Ghanaians’ (Buabeng, 10 Septem-

ber 2015). The famous Ghanaians quoted included all the six presi-

dents of Ghana, both former and incumbent, with all, except profes-

sor Atta Mills, still alive. All the statements point to the enormity of

the problem and looming threat it poses to the very existence of the

Ghanaian polity. The former Chief Justice, Mrs Georgina Theodora

Wood’s words capture this picture vividly;

Our country is caught in an unending spiral of decadence. Every day we read and hear of unspeakable corruption and abuse of the public purse by individuals and institutions entrusted with public funds. The situation has reached tipping point and our citizens genuinely wonder if any public official or institution can stand up to scrutiny (Buabeng, 10 September 2015)

Irked by the massive corruption in Ghana—and rightly so—one

Ghanaian argued with concrete examples similar to the Woyome

gate scandal that ‘create, loot, share (CLS) is the ‘new norm’ in Gha-

na (Kaminta, myjoyonline.com, 29 May 2017).

Any casual scan of the reportage of the Ghanaian news media—

who do a good job of raking up dirt from the hidden closets of pu-

blic institutions—affirms the claim of Kaminta that ‘create, loot,

share (CLS) is the ‘new norm’ in Ghana. The works of Ghanaian in-

vestigative journalists such as Anas Aremeyaw Anas and Manasseh

Azure Awuni have uncovered corruption scandals in the public sec-

tor of Ghana, illustrating the huge cost to the country and the mo-

dus operandi of the perpetrators. Apart from his recent (2018) earth-

shattering documentary—Number 12: When misconduct and greed


become the norm—in which he reports the shocking corruption that

has bedeviled the Ghana Football Association (GFA), Anas has also

reported on other corruptions scandals in Ghana: in 2011, he expo-

sed the bribery and corruption of customs officials at Tema harbor;

in 2012, he exposed officials of the Electricity Company (ECG) who

engaged in illegal supply, distribution and debt collection; and in

2015, he exposed corruption in the judiciary involving over 30

judges of both lower and higher courts, of which several of them

were dismissed and others disciplined in other ways. Manasseh

Azure Awuni’s investigative work into the Ghana Youth Employ-

ment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) and the

Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) similarly un-

covered various acts of corruption in these public institutions. His

documentary, the Sad SADA Story, reported vividly how a project

involving the planting of trees in the northern part of the country

was buried in corruption and mismanagement—a typical characte-

ristic of the implementation of development projects in Ghana.

This author wonders the weight of guilt J.J. Rawlings carries on

his shoulders, still living and seeing what has become of the Gha-

naian state. His two military governments killed people for relatively

minor acts of corruption and waste of state resources. Yet, literally

unfolding before his very eyes, are massive, widespread corruption

and crass abuse of public offices marking every corner of the coun-

try. It is not uncommon to hear from one of the presidents of Ghana

or their loyal supporters asking for evidence to support allegations of

corruption, arguing that the allegations are most often based on per-

ception. This attitude betrays their motivation to engage in and ma-

chinations of corruption. They are motivated because the legal bar

set for prosecuting and convicting criminal offences and criminals is

so high, they know they can get away with corrupt practices without

prosecution and conviction. By their positions and authority in va-

rious public institutions, they have the luxury of time and institutio-

nal space to scheme, create, loot, and share while covering their

64 Nokoko 7 2019

tracks—sometimes, by manipulating administrative procedures, or

exploiting loopholes in them, or both.

The legal bar for prosecuting and convicting offences/offenders

of corruption needs to be lowered below other criminal cases be-

cause it is a white-collar crime that is very difficult to prosecute. Un-

like other crimes like fraud, stealing, forgery, and dishonestly recei-

ving where the evidence is difficult to cover up, corruption can be

covered up with administrative procedures and the exercise of discre-

tion. In any case, one doesn’t have to look beyond the political

elites, the perpetrators of corruption, for the evidence. It is all docu-

mented in the content of the news media in Ghana where the politi-

cal class engage with each other publicly. In trying to gain political

advantage by criticising and discrediting each other for political ad-

vantage, they provide the smoking gun of the widespread nature of

corruption in Ghana. The endemic nature of corruption exposes the

hypocrisy and empty rhetoric embedded in such high-sounding anti-

corruption aphorisms designed and parroted by Ghanaian leaders

like “probity and accountability” (à la President Rawlings), “zero

tolerance for corruption” (à la President Kufour), “I am incorrup-

tible” (à la Mahama), and “I am not into politics to take bribes or be

corrupt. I did not come into politics to line my pockets with the

money of poor Ghanaians” (à la Akufo Addo). Indeed, the Rawlings-

led AFRC and PNDC (as aforementioned) used extrajudicial mea-

sures to cleanse Ghana of corruption. But one of Rawlings’ political

legacies, the formation of the NDC party, is deeply involved in the

widespread corruption of democratic governance in Ghana sketched

above. Similarly, even though President Kufuor won the 2000 elec-

tions partly because of his promise of zero tolerance for corruption,

he left office with his infamous saying that corruption is as old as

Adam.

The veritable display of the neo-patrimonial state in Ghana is

the obscene overindulgence of public servants, both elected and ap-

pointed, in lavish lifestyles in the midst of suffering and indigent


masses. Rather than servants of the masses—which is what they are

supposed to be in a democratic system of government—they have

become lords, nobles, princesses and princes. They see themselves as

a privileged caste, superior in social status to the citizens whom they

treat with scorn and contempt—as if to say the citizens belong to the

lower caste and they the superior caste. Suddenly, they become

“Honourables” and “Excellences”, entitled to live a luxurious lifes-

tyle befitting their status. To do this, they give themselves extrava-

gant perks of office, which they unconscionably and crassly flaunt in

front of the bulging and miserable poor.

Thus, the quintessential paradox of Ghanaian democracy is that

it has led to the installation of the ancien régime of Medieval France,

with all the flamboyance and overindulgence reminiscent of the

trappings of the status of the nobility. One example of this flam-

boyant lifestyle will suffice: their taste for super-luxurious cars. They

must ride in Toyota Landcruiser V8 vehicles, customised with specs

to suit their taste and status. At the moment, this is the vehicle of

their taste; but they used to ride in Nissan Patrols before they disco-

vered the more luxurious Landcruiser. In the near future they may

upgrade to any other car the automobile companies may invent

which is more luxurious than the Landcruiser. The cost of the car

doesn’t matter, let alone the servicing and fuel consumption; and

despite the high fuel consumption, the engines of these cars must be

left running for hours, waiting for one noble or the other to return

from a meeting to ride without feeling any sign of heat. Never mind

that this may be someone who might not have bought and ridden in

an air-conditioned car before entering into politics. Also bear in

mind that the combined cost of all the above expenses on the car

can pay for the cost of building a clinic in one of the remote villages

or slums they would be going back to canvass for votes during the

next round of elections. Never mind that by the time they go back,

some of the inhabitants might have lost their lives through cholera

or malaria, especially children. When they are riding in these cars,

66 Nokoko 7 2019

they are entitled to break all the traffic regulations; they must put on

hazard lights and even trigger off the sirens for everyone to give way

to this privileged class to pass.

Liberal/electoral democracy is elitist indeed! It inverts the prin-

cipal-agent and master-servant relationship between the citizens and

their elected or appointed public servants to a totally different rela-

tionship: superior-lower caste relationship. Surprisingly, the citizens

seem to have accepted this new relationship wholeheartedly and

unquestioningly.

Surprise! Democracy in Poverty and Inequality

Promoters of liberal/electoral democracy are surprised that it

has endured in some parts of the world where the socioeconomic

and political conditions are inhospitable for its survival. Countering

the current thinking that democracy is on the decline, Levitsky and

Way (2015, p. 73) cited countries like Ghana, Benin, and others

where democracy is surprisingly thriving despite unfavourable con-

ditions like ‘little or no democratic tradition, weak states, high levels

of poverty and inequality, and in some cases deeply divided socie-

ties.’ Larry Diamond is also surprised that democracy has survived in

countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone where the objective condi-

tions for sustaining it are unfavorable due to poverty (Diamond,

2015, p. 99).

True, the consolidation of liberal democracy in Ghana is surpri-

sing; more so from a radical perspective of democracy and political

accountability. This is a democracy in which the luxurious lifestyles

of the elected oligarchy and the top public servants belie the levels of

poverty and underdevelopment that exist in the country. They belie

the fact that the Ghanaian economy is on the life support of loans

and development aid (Whitfield 2010, 2011), including those from

China, a non-democratic state which has become one of the leading

actors of “development” in democratic Ghana. They belie the fact


that the Ghanaian state cannot provide essential services to it citi-

zens; and in some cases, non-governmental organisations (NGOs)

have to fill in for the state by providing some of these services or

helping the citizens to provide them themselves (Bawa, 2013). Des-

pite all the glorification of Ghana as a model democracy, the country

is essentially, so poor and underdeveloped that it even had to go

through the humiliation of joining the highly indebted poor coun-

tries (HIPC) in 2001.

Anyone visiting Ghana for the first time will be highly impres-

sed with the modern infrastructure she will see; ranging from the

relatively modernised airport that she arrives at, to the paved roads

she would drive on from the airport to the hotel she may be lodging

at the plush airport or East Legon Residential areas. She may also be

impressed with the huge shopping malls where she can buy every-

thing found in any mall in a Western country like USA, Britain, and

Canada. However, this is a highly deceptive picture of development

in Ghana. In fact, a paper-thin façade that masks a country that is

essentially a Fourth World country in Castell’s (2010) formulation

of the concept: a country characterised by extreme poverty, misery,

and deprivation of the majority subaltern classes. The visitor begins

to get this real picture of the level of development of Ghana when

she drives a few kilometres outside Accra to the nearest village; more

so, when she travels towards and to the northern part of the country.

She will discover that Ghana is a Fourth World country in which

most Ghanaians lack adequate healthcare; in which children still

attend schools under trees; in which open defecation is rampant; in

which people still drink unpotable water from streams, dams, and

rivers; and in which children suffer from malnutrition. It is a country

in which some parts are usually cut off from the rest during raining

season because there are no bridges to cross the river to join the

mainland. Ghana is a country that the state cannot even manage

waste. Its capital city, Accra, is buried up to the neck in filth. Ghana

is a country in which the state cannot provide reliable electricity.

68 Nokoko 7 2019

Local level governmental bodies like district assembles which are

supposed to provide basic services such as water, sanitation, educa-

tion, and health cannot do so because they lack funds. They are nei-

ther able to generate enough revenue nor get funds from central go-

vernment. In most cases, funds from central government are often in

three quarters arrears of what is budgeted for the year (Barnett et al.,

2018).

Characteristic of a Fourth World country, a great number of

Ghanaians still suffer appalling levels of poverty and deprivation in

this twenty-first century of abundance of wealth and advanced

science, technology, and medicine. The national poverty line of

Ghana is based on the monetary measurement of the consumption

basket. That is the amount of money needed to command the food

and non-food basics of life such as the nutritional requirements of

each member of the household (Ghana Statistical Service [GSS],

2017, p. 8). There are two levels of poverty lines: lower and upper

poverty line. The lower or extreme or food poverty line, pegged at

GH¢792.05 per adult per year—that is about US$164 per year—is

the amount of money needed just to meet the nutritional require-

ments of household members. The upper poverty line, pegged at

GH¢1,314 (about US$273) per adult per year, is the amount of mo-

ney needed for both essential food and non-food consumption

goods. Nominally, poverty is said to be reducing in Ghana in the last

three decades, between 1992 and 2013, when it has reduced from

56.5% to 24.2%; thereby achieving the MDG1 (Cooke et al., 2016,

p. 1). However, the latest Ghana Living Standards Survey 7 (GLSS 7)

reports that more Ghanaians are living in extreme poverty in 2017

than they did in 2013: “the number of people living in extreme po-

verty increased from 2.2 million in 2013 to 2.4 million in 2017”

(GSS 2017, p.). The report gives a sobering interpretation of what

this means: an estimated 2.4 million Ghanaians “cannot consume

the minimum daily requirement of 2,900 calories per adult equiva-

lent of food per day, even if they were to spend all their expenditures


on food. This figure is up from the 2013 levels, by almost 200,000”

(GSS 2017, p. 14).

Note that GH¢792.05 (US$164) may not be enough for the

monthly servicing of one Toyota Land Cruiser V8 used by state offi-

cials, both elected and appointed. It may not be up to the sitting

allowance paid to members of a committee or board of a public or-

ganisation per sitting. It is certainly not enough to pay one-night

hotel accommodation for one top state official, political appointee

or public servant. Bear in mind, also, that the amount the poor

Ghanaian needs just to feed himself/herself the whole year may not

even be enough to pay the per diem of one of the above-mentioned

officials when they travel within the country or abroad. For example,

the Chief Executive Officer of the Microfinance and Small Loans

Centre (MASLOC), Mr Amoah, has said that his predecessor, Mrs

Sedina Tamakloe Attionu, used to draw GH¢5000 as per diem when

she travels outside Accra; but he has slashed it down to GH¢1500 for

himself (Starrfmonline.com, 29 October 2018). If related to the na-

tional poverty line, it means that his successors used to take more

than six times what an extremely poor Ghanaian needs to be well-

fed the whole year. Even in its drastically reduced amount of

GH¢1500, it represents two times the amount the extremely poor

need the whole year to be well-fed. Even though this author hardly

makes official travels, he takes per diem of about GH¢250 when he

travels within the country, a third of what an extremely poor Gha-

naian needs to be well-fed the whole year.

In Ghana, and in most of Africa, it is the rural areas that are

hardest hit by poverty. About “15.6 percent of the projected 14.2

million persons in the rural localities are extremely poor, and they

contribute 93.8 percent to this national extreme poverty” (GSS,

2017, p. 14). Yet poverty does not inflict rural people evenly across

Ghana. It is worse in some regions and districts than in others. The

Northern, Upper East, and Upper West Regions are poorer than the

rest of the ten regions. Even in these regions, some districts are worse

70 Nokoko 7 2019

off than others. For example, between 80% and 90% of the popula-

tion in the West Mamprusi and Mamprugu Moagduri districts in the

Northern Region and the Builsa South districts in the Upper East

Region live below the national poverty line (Barnett et al., 2018).

What is even across Ghana are elections. Barring communication

hitches, the remotest parts of Ghana—even those places in “over-

seas”, often cut off from the rest of the country in the raining season

by flooded rivers—exercise their rights to vote. Not only does the

Electoral Commission set up polling stations, voting booths, and

send personnel there to organize elections. The politicians invade

there, unashamedly, with their Toyota Land Cruiser V8s to canvass

for votes.

Inequality is the bedfellow of poverty in Ghana. While all Gha-

naians irrespective of class, gender, sex, and ethnicity are equal in

the political realm, there is widening inequality between the haves

and have-nots. Obscene inequality is the hallmark of our present

neoliberal order that promotes liberal democracy as the best model

of democracy. Liberal democracy does not see any contradictions

between being free and equal in the political realm and unequal and

trapped in poverty in the economic realm. Little wonder that we live

in a world that is dominated by democratic governments; yet equali-

ty of wealth between regions, countries, and people is widening. For

example, in 2016, the 10% top income earners possessed 37% of the

wealth of Europe, 41% of the wealth of China, 46% of the wealth of

Russia, 47% of the wealth of US and Canada, and around 57% of

the wealth sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, and India (World Inequality

Lab, 2017, p. 9). Having implemented neoliberal economic policies

for more than three decades and practised liberal democracy for 25

years, Ghana is a microcosm of the atrocious inequality of our pre-

sent world order. The gap between the poorest 10% and the

wealthiest 10% of Ghanaians has been widening between 2006 and

2013. Whereas the “wealthiest 10% consume around one third of all

national consumption…the poorest 10% consume just 1.72%”


(Cooke et al., 2016, p. 2). In the cities of Ghana like Accra and Ku-

masi, the yawning chasm that separates the Ghanaian ruling class, a

fraction of the population, from the majority living in grinding po-

verty is so evident to the casual observer. One is confronted in these

cities by a distasteful scene of islands of wealth in a sea of despair

and poverty, with wealthy people (including the political class)

conspicuously displaying their wealth in the midst of beggarly young

people eking a living by selling knickknacks.

The figures cited above give us a good picture of poverty and

inequality in Ghana. However, it is only when one sees the real life-

world of the poverty in which the subalterns live, observe their mise-

rable living conditions, and how they strive to survive in these ex-

tremely difficult circumstances that the enormity of the problem is

brought into sharper focus than figures can do. Some of the news

media, both local and foreign, have been doing a good job of brin-

ging the appalling living conditions of the poor from the dark re-

mote parts of the country to the spotlight and the awareness of

people across the world. For example, TV 3’s Mission Ghana and Joy

News Seyiram Abla Desouza’s documentaries on development pro-

blems in the rural areas give panoramic and vivid picture of the

miserable living conditions of the rural poor and dismal failure of

the state to promote development in Ghana.

The dark side of Ghana’s electoral democracy is that the demo-

cratic state fails to provide even the most basic things like furniture

to schools. We are told in one recent news report that:

Pupils of Kalbeo-Tindongsobligo primary school in the Bolgatanga municipality in the Upper East Region sit on the bare floor for studies…Pupils of the school which has an enrolment of over 400 pupils from kindergarten to primary four sit on the bare floor for their lessons (ghanaweb.com, 27 October 2018).

Ian Birrell of the UK newspaper, The Daily Mail, has filed a re-

port on the failure of The Millennium Villages Project (MVP), a five-

year development project implemented in northern Ghana with £11

72 Nokoko 7 2019

million of the British taxpayer (see also Barnett et al., 2018). His

report (and Barnett et al.’s) illustrate not just how extremely incapa-

citated the democratic neo-patrimonial state of Ghana is to promote

development; it is spiced with embarrassing photos of the develop-

ment-backwardness of the country. One photo shows miserable

school children sitting on a dirty floor of a class room in the village

of Duu in the West Mamprusi District in Northern Region, listening

attentively to their headteacher, Mr. Abdulai Shefu (Birrell, 14 Octo-

ber 2018).

If one is elected into a political office in a Fourth World country

like Ghana—where some of your school children don’t have

classrooms, chairs, and desks—that elected public servant doesn’t

deserve to ride even on a good motorcycle, let alone a Toyota Land-

cruiser V8. As a president of a country like this, you don’t even de-

serve to fly business class in a commercial airline let alone flying in a

presidential jet. Top public officials, both elected and appointed, see

all these as normal perks of their office befitting their status as the

nobility. Therein lies the paradox of development aid, targeting de-

mocratic African countries. Ghanaian political leaders go with cup-

in-hand to the Western industrialised countries, genuflecting to col-

lect aid to improve the wellbeing of their people. Yet they are not

restrained by their begging to live luxurious lifestyles that their Wes-

tern counterparts, the givers of the aid, would envy.

Conclusion: Why no Resistance from below in Ghana?

If material hardships and socioeconomic inequality of class

were enough to get the subaltern classes up in arms against the ru-

ling classes, Ghana should have experienced, at least, one Arab

Spring-style rebellion—especially, with its bulging unemployed

youth. Enter my book! It took issues with the industry of Marxist

literature claiming a groundswell of resistance from “below” against

neoliberal globalisation. The central claim of this oeuvre is that neo-


liberal globalisation is unjust and has inflicted untold hardships on

the lives of the subaltern classes. In response, they have mobilised

around the idiom of “Another World is Possible” to resist this

economic and political order. While this may be true in some coun-

tries such as Bolivia, it is false in Ghana. Far from rising up against

the state and the elected oligarchy, the subalterns have become loyal

supporters of the two dominant parties, the NDC and NPP; the go-

vernments of which have implemented and continue to implement

harsh neoliberal policies with deleterious effects on their lives. Des-

pite the failures of these governments to improve their wellbeing,

there is no evidence that the Ghanaian subalterns are mobilising

across party and ethnic lines as a class to mount an Arab Spring-style

revolt against the corrupt and non-performing leaders of these two

parties. Rather than raising the flag of class, the subaltern classes

have raised (and continue to raise) the flag of party and ethnicity.

The fundamental question the book then addresses is why the

subalterns in Bolivia resist and their counterparts in Ghana do not. It

argued that the political agency of the subaltern class is shaped by

the socio-historical context in which they live and reproduce

themselves, materially and socially. It is this that shapes what they

define as intolerable injustices, whether they can do something

about it, the resources they have to do something about it, and the

counteracting imaginings of what is defined as a just world and why

the status quo should not be disrupted. One of the distinct proper-

ties of the socio-historical context of Ghana between 1992 and pre-

sent (2018) is electoral democracy. Situating the political agency of

the Ghanaian subalterns in this specific context, the book illustrates

that the traditionally radical civic culture of Ghanaians in holding

their traditional authorities (like chiefs) accountable is eviscerated

by electoral democracy and its concomitant partisan party politics.

Even the traditionally militant and well-organized civic organiza-

tions like university students’ associations and workers unions have

all become dormant as their leaders and the rank and file are all di-

74 Nokoko 7 2019

vided by partisan politics. To be added to this is the increasing poli-

ticisisation of the academia. Intellectuals who used to speak truth to

power are increasingly becoming loyal supporters of NDC and NPP,

throwing into the dustbin any sense of critical and objectives analy-

sis of issues—let alone the boldness to speak out based on findings

of such critical scrutiny. Essentially, electoral democracy has killed

the republican virtues of the Ghanaian subaltern and spawned a po-

litical culture that betrays a clientelist, gullible and sycophantic

Ghanaian citizenry who uncritically imbibe the political rhetoric of

the political class; and are prepared to defend them against their

own interests as a class.

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Documents

Electoral Democracy and the Attenuation of Subaltern